Agile and other modern project management techniques

About Agile Umbrella

These days, wherever you turn, you can hear talks about this methodology. Agile is really “on the wave” right now. In fact, Agile is not a methodology, but rather a software development principle, a certain work philosophy. In short, Agile’s methodology actually describes flexibility and the iterative creation process. The methodology offers the tasks to be done according to the situation rather than planning each step in advance. The Agile team responds well to changing and unexpected situations.

Although Agile’s project management principles were applied in the early ’90s, they acquired the name Agile after 2001, when the Agile Manifesto was signed, so Agile is simply an umbrella term for project management techniques that are consistent with Agile Manifest’s statements and principles.

Principles:

• People and their communication are valued more than processes and tools
• Operating software – more than detailed documentation
• Collaboration with a customer – more than a contract negotiation
• Reaction to change – more than the execution of the plan.

Manifest Philosophy:

• The highest priority is to meet customer needs by delivering value-creating software.
• Changing requirements should be adopted even at a late stage of development, as Agile processes exploit changes to increase customer competitiveness.
• Delivering the product to the customer in installments over a period of two weeks to several months, giving priority to the shorter.
• Throughout the project, people working in the business and manufacturing sectors need to communicate daily.
• Projects are created by motivated people who are given a favorable environment, support, and confidence.
• Open conversation is the most effective and efficient way of communicating information to a team and team.
• Operating software is the key to progress evaluation.
• Customers, developers, and consumers need to be able to maintain steady communication and keep up the pace that promotes sustainable project implementation.
• Continuous attention to technical excellence and responsible design significantly accelerate project implementation.
• Simplicity is the art of reducing unnecessary work.
• The self-organizing teams create the best architectures and projects.
• The team regularly discusses how to become more efficient, appropriately adjusts and modifies its working methods. This philosophy and principles are based on all the techniques under the Agile umbrella (Scrum, Kanban, Scrum, Lean, Extreme programming, Feature-Driven Development, and others). We will describe in more detail the two most popular and widely used methodologies – Scrum and Kanban.

Scrum methodology

With regard to Scrum, it could be argued that it is a tool for hyper-productivity. In short, Scrum defines healthy competition, intra-team collaboration, and encouragement to achieve the right result in the right way as quickly as possible.

Each Scrum Team has a Scrum Master whose main task is to remove interference that prevents the task from doing time and otherwise helping team members. The team leader is not a leader, all Scrum team members are equivalent.

This Scrum methodology is characterized by:

• Backlog – Priority documented non-initiated and unfinished tasks for a team of up to 9 people.
• Sprint – short iterations (2 – 4 weeks) that complete a few major tasks.
• Daily scrum – short meetings, during which each member of the group presents what they have done during the day and what they plan to do next.
• Planning sessions – when tasks are selected for further sprinting and assigned to group members.
• Sprint End Meetings – Analyzing past sprint experience, how and why task timing was different from actual time spent.

They also discuss whether the project is being implemented (Definition of Done DoD). Sprint demonstrations – during which teams show each other the parts that were completed during the expired sprint.

Kanban methodology

The Kanban method was developed by the international corporation Toyota. The methodology uses visual tools to indicate what, how and when to produce. Task Cards travel from the initial stage to the completion of the task. This creates a medium for a responsible approach to change, time-consuming and low-value-added projects, continuous communication with the customer, accumulation of high concentration on current tasks and convenient time planning.

Key Principles of Kanban Methodology:

• Visualizations – a creation of a visual model of the works and their progress, allowing them to observe the whole process of work and related processes. This visual tool brings out the fastest and slowest processes, disturbances and other factors.
• The visual time-planning model helps to quickly detect and more effectively address emerging issues. To do this, sticky sheets or a variety of computer systems are used, where you can see clearly what work is already done, what is in the process of performing, and what more will be done.
• Limitation of the amount of work. The practice of Kanban states that the number of tasks to be performed should always be limited. This helps employees avoid multitasking: it ensures that the employee works on a single task and therefore does not waste time.
• Smooth workflow. Restricting the ability to do multiple jobs at the same time ensures a smooth and optimized workflow. This gives an opportunity to analyze the progress of the work, to see the current and potential future problems.
• Improvement. According to Kanban, it is important to analyze the processes in the company. Calculating the time required for performing the tasks, evaluating the quality of the tasks performed and other indicators help the teams identify their weaknesses, problems and improve their solutions.